
Today we bring you Fightin’ Mad White Women in a Meat Locker. Like Rocky Balboa . . .
Remember tough GOP campaigner Sarah Palin chirping on about family holidays in front of turkey slaughter in what looked like a wood chipper, body still twitching and blood flying? The joke then was “pro-life, huh?”
But the image fit and she didn’t seem as bothered by it as even her own team was, much less the rest of us. It vividly showed her to be one tough force to be reckoned with, a warrior not merely of culture but blood and guts, bullets and guns, spoiling for a fight, a warrior unconstrained by truth and unable to tolerate (much less create and sustain) peace, according to (most recently) the Palin portrait painted in the new Joe McGinniss book aptly titled The Rogue.
I haven’t read the book, only heard several interviews with the author. What I heard in his storyline about HER storyline, is that that she’s ruthlessly competitive, so much so that she (and her father and her husband) are insidiously, intentionally menacing for effect, to demoralize and destroy not just enemies but opponents, folks across the country and the guy next door — even those few individuals close to her who dare to feel friendly to her much less try to work with her. (No wonder her own high school basketball teammates called her Sarah Barracuda.)
This all once upon a more innocent time, made me think of her as a somewhat sympathetic Scarlett O’Hara but now it seems more like Lou Gossett Jr. except unfortunately she’s in my real life whether I buy a ticket to keep watching or not, and her competitive power of story is only about winners and losers, just to beat everyone else down and step over their bodies, not to teach and raise them up, not to make us all better for the greater good:
I’ll use any means FAIR or UNFAIR to trip you up!
Now presidential candidate Michele Bachmann is manhandling some red meat for the Red Vote. To prove what a tough competitor she is? — but it seems to me what’s really tough in ways both fair and unfair, is believing she can be so tenderly concerned about our “little girls” when she opposes American society working effectively together to help them stay healthy! — she very publicly opposed a cancer-preventing vaccine last week, and this week stands in a meat locker calling for an end to food inspection, unconcerned about e.coli (which disproportionately threatens young children) . . .
Like Gene Hackman in another movie, I “feel like I’m going insane.” Or from the same power of story:
Not-so-bright performer: “Chewing gum helps me think.”
Older, wiser performer: “Sweetie, you’re wasting your gum.”
Finally, it put me in mind of this, remember?
Oh shoot! (pun intended.)
Federal control with licenses and training and stuff?? Can’t we just open it up for free market sport, this constitutional freedom to pursue happiness by killing, Read the rest of this entry »
Judy Blume for Banned Books Week: “Children are the real losers”
23 09 2011. . .when anyone tries to control what they can read, and know, and ask and talk about. Are you ready to read a banned book tomorrow to help kick off the 30th anniversary of the ALA’s Banned Books Week? We sure are!
See other author and book-champion videos on the dedicated Banned Books Week youtube channel. Play with the interactive “censorship” map of the US here. (Show your kids it’s not just YOUR backward town or state! It’s everywhere!)
Snook posts for Banned Books Week every year — this makes six because the blog started just in time for the 2006 celebration, which was the silver anniversary. Last year’s posts are here: Think for Yourself and Let Others Do the Same and If I Had a Robot, Would I Hammer in the Morning?
And there are lots of book-burning related posts through the years, most notoriously this and maybe this from 9/11 last year:
See a more comprehensive collection of links to explore here: Ideas Are Incombustible! (that means you can’t burn ’em up no matter how big your bonfire.)
But I think the most fun we had discussing Banned Books Week probably was in 2007:
Comments : 32 Comments »
Tags: Authority, Beyond Belief, Intelligence, Parental Rights, School Law, Witches
Categories : Bullying and control, civil rights, colleges and universities, Constitution, Cynical Stuff, Early Childhood Issues, education, Ethics and Philosophy, Evolved Homeschoolers, Family Values, Favorite Daughter, From the Mouths of Babes, Gay Pride, God, Harry Potter, Health, History, home, Human Networking, Humor, Institutions and Individuals, Intellectual and Academic Freedom, Journalism, Language, learning, Liberties and Rights, Literacy, Memes, Parent Involvement, Partisan Politics, Election News/Commentary, Power of Story, Pregnancy, Pro-life, Pro-choice, Propaganda, Racial Profiling, Rage, Reason, Religion, school board issues, School versus Education, Separation of Church and State--the First Amendment, Teachers, Textbooks, The South, Thinking Parents, Violence, What's In a Name?, Young Son